The Road Not Taken
by RedMenace
Summary: What if Team 7 had a useful teacher?
1. Chapter 1 : The Teacher

Usually, the expression 'fork in the road' is metaphorical. For one fleeing missing-nin of Konoha, it was an actual, physical fork in the road.

The left or the right?

He knew there was a human tendency to pick the left fork of a path, but the hunter-nin would know that too, so perhaps he should take the left anyways? Or would she expect that?

No time to think it over. Flipping a mental coin, he moved left.

Scant minutes later and the ninja was cursing his choice. The path switched back here. If she knew this area well, and she likely did...

The noises of the forest died down and a silence settled over the trees. 'She's here,' he thought, pulling out a tanto and looking around nervously. He knew his odds in a fight here, and cursed. If he'd only taken the right hand path after all, he might have stayed ahead long enough to escape the Fire Country. Instead, he was going to die here.

A hand slowly pushed aside the foliage up ahead, revealing an ANBU mask in the shape of a bear's head. Twin blue eyes, dark enough to be almost black, stared back. He waited for the attack.

He never expected it to come from behind.

Slumping over, paralyzed, the would be traitor flopped to the ground as the hunter-nin kicked him off her sword. The one he'd been watching in the bushes disappeared with a poof of smoke. He'd been fooled by an elementary ruse. Looking up at his pursuer, he struggled to find his voice. "I have no-"

Whatever he was going to say was silenced by a boot stomping in his head.

Snorting, the ANBU wiped her sword off on the dead ninja, placed some seals on the body, and activated them. How lucky she was that he'd made this simple mistake, and not taken the other path. She'd have wasted another day chasing him, after all, and then another day returning home.

On the way back to Konoha she passed through the split in the paths without taking notice of it. What difference does a path not taken and two days wasted make in the long run, after all?

oooooooo

"The Hokage is discussing the upcoming genin teams with Umino," one of the guards outside the Hokage's office said, holding up a hand.

"Very well," the bear-masked ANBU said. "I will not take up too much of his time, and I have a report to give."

"You probably want to see your student again, too," the chuunin said, smiling. The ANBU stared back, impassively, until he twitched. He opened the door. "Hokage. An ANBU is here to give a report."

Sarutobi looked up from his desk, where he was assigning genin teams to various jounin-sensei with the help of the instructors, to glance at the ninja in the doorway. "Come in - close the door," he said, and waited until the door was closed before speaking further. "You can take off that mask, Makurayami-san," he told her, and pulled out a seat.

She removed her mask and held it in one arm, then sat stiffly in the offered chair. "Hokage, I report success in my mission to eliminate the fugitive," she said, her eyes carefully not looking at the desk and the various papers it held, lest she see something not meant for her eyes.

"Very good," Sarutobi said. "I expect no less of you, although you're back faster than you estimated."

"The target made an error, and I was able to shorten my mission."

"And you should never plan on having good fortune," Iruka said, smiling.

"You learned something from me. Good," she said coolly. She glared at him. "Sometimes I wondered if you ever would." She turned to the Hokage. "Is there anything else?"

"Actually, as long as you're here, would you mind giving your opinion of these genin teams?" the Hokage asked, gesturing to the provisional teams Iruka and he had drawn up.

She nodded and picked them up, reading over them quickly. "Kurenai-san to be given command of a team of an Inuzaka, an Aburame, and a Hyuuga. A very good choice; Kurenai will not push them into direct action and will polish their strengths in intelligence gathering and scouting. I cannot say the same about assigning Asuma to this other team," she said, indicating the provisional Team 10. "I have seen the Nara and Akimichi boy around town, and I question whether Asuma will be able to get them out of the lazy habits they have. Still," she said, "not a bad choice. As for this other team - with Uzumaki? He is the prankster, yes?"

"That's Naruto, all right," Iruka said, wondering what his former instructor thought about Naruto. With most ninja, it would be 'nothing good', but Lin-sensei never seemed to get upset about the antics of academy students. Mere students were beneath her.

"You have paired him with Uchiha, and assigned them Kakashi. I find that a particularly bad choice," she said flatly.

The Hokage held up a hand. "Kakashi is one of our most powerful ninja-"

"-which says nothing about his teaching acumen, which is unknown," she interrupted.

"-and also is the last sharingan user in the village," he finished.

"A better argument... against Kakashi. His presence on the team smacks of favoritism towards Sasuke. Besides, Kakashi fails all of his students; I question whether he should be given command of a genin team at all, at this point."

"We don't have that many other jounin available," Iruka said, pointing out another reason Kakashi was listed as a jounin instructor.

"Fine," she said. "Hokage, I request to take Kakashi's place as an instructor."

Sarutobi raised his eyebrows. "It's unusual for someone your age to offer to teach a second genin team, nevermind a third," he said. She stared at him impassively. He shrugged and lined out Kakashi's name on the team assignments. "Fine, then. Should we be expecting a rookie team in the Chuunin exams, then?"

"I would be disappointed otherwise," she said, standing up and bowing slightly.

"Dismissed," the Hokage said. Her mask reappeared on her face as if by magic, and she walked out of the room. He signed and looked at Iruka with a slight smile. "Don't you feel sorry for those poor kids?"

Iruka thought back to his own days as a genin and smiled. "As a matter of fact - yes." They both laughed. "I feel most sorry for Sakura, actually. Lin-sensei's training is a bit hard."

"Well, she was Gai's teammate," the Hokage said by way of explanation. "You know that. Besides, she might have mellowed out some. You got her as a rookie jounin, after all."

"I can't picture her mellowing out," Iruka said. "I mean, it's been eleven or twelve years and she'll still chew me out for calling her by her name."

"You aren't a jounin-"

"-you don't deserve to use it," Iruka finished, shaking his head. "I've heard that way too many times. Is that all?"

"That's it. Good luck with the next bunch of brats entering the Academy," the Hokage said, smiling, as he led the chuunin out of his office. After he left he stared out the window. "I suppose Kakashi will be happy - no distractions from Icha Icha. Which reminds me," he said, patting himself down for a piece of paper and a pen, "I should ask Jiraiya for an advance copy."

oooooooo

After they'd been assigned to teams, the rookie genin were given a short break before they'd meet their jounin instructors. He'd headed back to his classroom and sat down. Some of the jounin instructors were there already – there was a lazy looking guy who had a cigarette in his mouth. That guy just about had to be Shikamaru's team leader; it wouldn't be funny enough otherwise. Most of the jounin sensei were looking at various genin in the room or talking to each other about their new team. One was holding a conversation with Iruka instead. His teacher broke off the conversation and turned back to the classroom. "All right. Not all the jounin have arrived, but it's time for us to start. If your instructor isn't here, just wait for them. Kakashi isn't taking a team this year, so none of you should have to wait too long," Iruka said, and the jounin instructors chuckled.

The woman who'd been talking to Iruka immediately stepped forward the second he stopped talking. "Team 7," she said curtly, briefly glancing at each of the three genin. "Come with me." Immediately she turned and left without waiting for acknowledgement.

Looking at his two teammates, Naruto got up and ran out the door with them. Their instructor had paused out in the hallway, but resumed her quick walk once they got out of the classroom.

"Where are we going?" Naruto asked loudly. There was no answer. They entered the staircase and started heading up. "Are we going to the roof?" he asked again.

"Shut up, dead-last," Sasuke whispered, glancing at their jounin-sensei. Naruto bristled but shut up.

The four of them walked out onto the roof. Their instructor walked forward, then stopped and slowly turned. Her eyes flicked over her team. "Sit," she commanded sharply.

The three genin sat down immediately. Their instructor walked forward, then paced back and forth in front of them, looking down – looking _through_ – the trio, silent even despite her armor. A long, straight, tapering sword was in its scabbard over her shoulder, looking more like a spike than a normal sword.

"I am unimpressed," she stated loudly, still pacing in front of them. She wasn't even looking at them. "They tell me I'm getting ninjas, but all I see are students. You three, are unworthy of being genin," she continued, looking down her nose impassively at Sasuke, who bristled.

Naruto was angry himself. Hadn't he passed the test? Didn't he have a hitae-ite? He jumped up, ready to give this jounin a piece of his mind. "Hey-"

"YOU," she barked, turning on Naruto suddenly and freezing him with the sheer intensity of her glare. "WHAT. IS. YOUR. NAME."

Naruto flinched back. "Uzumaki Naruto, future-"

"Are you the Hokage?" she roared, cutting him off.

"No, but-"

"Are you even a jounin?" she continued, even louder.

"No-"

"Are you under my command?" she growled at him, her voice dropping even as her eyes grew angrier.

"Well, yes-"

"Then, Naruto, you SHUT UP and accept my judgement," she said sternly. She switched over to Sakura. "You. What's your name?"

"Haruno Sakura," she answered nervously.

Still moving, she stood in front of Sasuke. "You. State your name."

"Uchiha Sasuke."

"Very well. My name is Makurayami Lin. You will address me as 'Makurayami-sensei' or 'sensei'. We will be working together as a team, so I believe a short introduction is in order." She looked over to Naruto. "State your likes, your dislikes, your hobbies, and your goals."

He wanted to tell her that she should introduce herself, but Naruto wasn't a total idiot; he'd just get yelled at again. "Well, I like ramen... and I dislike the three minutes I have to wait for it to cook. My hobbies... pranks, I guess. And someday, I'll become the greatest Hokage of them all, and have the whole village acknowledge me!"

"Nice. Haruno. Same questions."

Sakura started, then blushed. "Oh! Um, the thing I like is... the person I like. And they're my dream for the future, too." Then her face went an instant tranformation as she frowned. "And the thing I dislike is Naruto. My hobby is -" and there she looked at Sasuke and blushed again.

"Hnn. Boy crazy," Makurayami-sensei said dismissively. "You. Uchiha. Same questions."

Sasuke shifted. "Well, there are lots of things I dislike, but few things I like. I don't really have a dream, more of an ambition: to restore my clan, and kill a certain man. I don't have hobbies."

"Hmm. Yes. Itachi," she said, frowning. "I will answer the same questions. I like serious, no-nonsense people. I dislike irresponsible people, perverts, and self-absorbed showboaters. My hobbies are reading and training, and my dream is to be recognized as the finest instructor of genin and chuunin this village has ever seen."

Sasuke snorted at that.

"There is one final thing to cover. Despite what you think, you are not wholly out of the academy yet. Instructors are supposed to give a final test – one with a passing rate of only 33 - to determine whether or not you are really ready to be sent out into the world as genin. I disagree with this system. It is bullshit, and I do not tolerate bullshit. If I have a team of ninja, they **will** learn to be a team, they **will** be an effective team, and they **will** become chuunin. Still, you have the choice. You can come with me, and I'll train you until you curse the day you were born. I'll train you until you curse the day I was born. And then I'll keep going until your enemies are the ones cursing your birthdays." She turned away from them. "Or you can run crying back to the academy. Your choice. I'll give you one minute do decide. If you don't want to be a genin, get the hell off this rooftop."

The three genin looked at each other, and remained seated. When the minute passed, she turned around. "Good. You didn't run away." For the first time since they'd met her, she smiled. It was not a reassuring smile. "There are going to be times when you regret this decision. But that's later. You are officially genin of the leaf. Congratulations. Meet at the bridge outside training area 23 tomorrow at dawn. Don't be late."

With that, their new sensei turned and jumped off the roof of the building onto the streets below. By the time Team 7 reached the edge of the building, she was already out of sight.

"That wasn't what I expected at all," muttered Sakura.

"She seems a bit... intense," Naruto said, agreeing.

"She's serious. She'll make us stronger," Sasuke said. He seemed almost eager to start training with the scary lady.

Truth be told, Naruto was a bit frightened of what training was going to be like, but it wasn't all bad. Not once had she looked at him with hate and loathing like the other villagers did. Of course, that was because she was sneering at them for being fresh out of the academy, but Naruto wasn't picky. Acceptance was acceptance. Right?

oooooooo

The next morning three tired genin were standing outside training area 23. The sky was still black, but they felt a generous definition of 'dawn' was the safest with their sensei.

"My parents asked me who my jounin instructor was," Sakura said. "When I told them who was leading our team, they started crying."

"That's not a good sign," Sasuke muttered.

"They said I was growing up too fast. This is the third team Makurayami has taken and the first two passed the chuunin exam as rookies," she finished.

"That's an encouraging sign," Sasuke said with enthusiasm. He'd be that much closer to killing his brother with a good instructor.

Their instructor walked up, emerging from the shadows just as the sky on the horizon turned a shade that could – with charity – be construed to suggest that the sun might actually rise soon. "Good, you're up," she said, unslinging a bag from her shoulder. It fell to the ground with a noisy thud. "Have you eaten?"

"Yes, sensei," Sakura and Sasuke said in unison. Naruto's stomach growled and he scratched the back of his head nervously.

"Heh heh, I'm not that hungry," he said. "I didn't want to be late, so I skipped breakfast."

"Hmm," Lin said, looking at him. "It's good you picked the team over breakfast. Still, you should eat. It would be bad to run out of energy." She reached into one of the scroll pouches at her belt and withdrew a scroll. She opened it up, revealing a series of squares, each one with a seal in the middle. "Kuchiyose: Ramen no Jutsu," she said, releasing one of the seals. A bowl of hot ramen appeared. Naruto needed no prompting to grab and inhale the hot soup. "Ramen is a source of good, cheap energy. It helps warm you on a cold day, and the salt is good for hot days. I don't recommend it as a steady meal, however. I've heard you have a habit of eating it."

Naruto showed no sign of having heard her, and noisily finished his meal. "Hey! Sensei! You have to teach me how to do that!"

"I'll teach all of you how to do that, once I've trained you up. The technique is adaptable to other items, and it makes life in the field much easier," she said. She looked the trio over. "For the next two weeks, we will be performing one D-class mission a day. The rest of the day will be given over to training. The four of us will eat lunch together. The choice of where to eat lunch will rotate through the team. Any questions?"

They shook their heads. "Then let's start off with conditioning. My old teammate Maito Gai believes in weight training as well, but he and I have different philosophies as to what it's good for. Everybody take a vest, a pair of bracers, and a pair of leg weights."

The genin each put on their weights and tested them out, Sasuke going so far as to try a few taijutsu exercises. "These aren't too heavy," Naruto said.

"Speak for yourself, Naruto," Sakura said. Sure, they weren't super heavy, but she was definitely going to feel it if they did any exercises at all.

"Are you all set?" their instructor asked. "Yes? Then let's go. Try to keep up."

"How far are we running?" Naruto asked as they started to follow her.

She looked back over her shoulder and glared. "You'll find out when I stop, fool! In the field, your enemy isn't going to tell you how far he plans to flee. So run until you don't need to run anymore!"

"I was just asking a question," Naruto grumbled to his teammates.

Minutes turned to an hour and their sensei hadn't even slowed, keeping up a steady lope as they ran around Konoha seemingly at random. They'd been led up hills and through mud, and even took to the rooftops for a while, jumping from building to building. Sakura was rapidly getting winded, with sweat pouring down her face as she gasped and wheezed. The combination of weight and distance was straining her. Sasuke was getting a bit winded, too. Only Naruto seemed unaffected by their run. Finally, their sensei ran back to the training area they'd set out from and stopped.

"We drink, and then we continue with training," she said, pulling out a different scroll and unsealing some canteens. "Drink, drink," she ordered them, forcefully handing them each a container before drinking from her own."

Sakura immediately took a gulp and then stopped in surprise. "It's not water, it's lemonade," she said, pleasantly surprised.

"Lemonade has sugar to replenish the energy you lost running, and the lemons prevent you from getting sick, which can happen if you drink ice cold water too fast after a long run," she said, then raised her voice. "Everything I do, I do for a reason! Remember that! It is the first lesson I'm teaching you. Be prepared to fight and you've half won already!"

"Hnn," Sasuke grunted, looking thoughtfully at the lemonade before finishing it off.

"When you're finished with that, we're doing jumping exercises," their sensei said.

"Jumping exercises?" Naruto asked, wiping his mouth off with his sleeve.

"They're pretty simple. Sakura, go behind those bushes and get the boxes I left over there."

"Why do-" she began to grumble before seeing the look on Makurayami-sensei's face. "I'm going, I'm going!"

"Can I help her?" Naruto asked eagerly.

"No. For asking, do fifty pushups."

"Heh, dobe," Sasuke said. smirking.

"No insulting your teammates. You get fifty pushups. And Naruto?" Lin said, looking at her loudest student.

"Yeah?" he said, doing pushups.

"I don't hear you counting. Start over, and count out loud. You too, Sasuke."

"Arrrgh!" Naruto said, dropping to the ground and banging his head against the ground in aggravation.

"Was that 'Ichi'?" Lin asked, smirking. On the other side, Sasuke began loudly calling out numbers.

"Uh, no," Naruto said, and began counting out loud.

Sakura finished dragging the heavy boxes over. There were ten, and each one was about a foot high, and rather heavy. The pink-haired girl sat on one and wiped her forehead. "What's in these boxes?" she asked.

"Concrete," her sensei replied. "They need to be heavy for this training."

"Oh, OK. What's the training like? -sensei?" Sakura said, adding the last on after catching herself?

"That's better," she said. "It's just strength training. We'll wait for the boys to finish before I explain, though."

Soon enough Naruto and Sasuke finished, and Makurayami grabbed one of the boxes. "This is a very simple training exercise for your legs," she said, putting the box in front of her. "You jump as high as possible onto the box, like this." Jumping into the air, she landed squarely in the middle of the box. "Then jump off to the front, then backwards onto the box again, always in the middle. Any time you fall off, you have to stop, pick up your box, and run around this clearing once. When you do the training exercise, don't hesitate, and jump as hard as you can." She demonstrated by jumping onto and off the box rapidly.

Sasuke snorted. "That looks easy," he said. Naruto didn't look impressed, either.

"All right, then, you shouldn't have any problems, right?" She set a timer to thirty minutes. "Go!"

Sasuke began with a smirk, which quickly started going away after a few minutes of relentless jumping. Sakura was the first to fall off her box, and lifted her box for a jog around the clearing. Sasuke followed her a few minutes later, as the endless jumping was beginning to tire his legs out. He joined Sakura on her third trip around the clearing.

Surprisingly, Naruto didn't fall off once.

"You must have the stamina of an ox," their sensei said, impressed. "You two take a break before the second step of the training. Naruto, you get a head start on the second step."

Naruto chuckled, sneaking a quick glance at Sasuke, who angrily looked away. He'd outperformed his rival, in front of Sakura, no less! And his sensei acknowledged him! "Oi, what do I have to do, sensei?" he said eagerly.

"Get another box and stick it on top. If you fall off, carry both around the clearing." While Naruto did that, she picked up another two boxes for her other students. "You two have a few minutes to catch your breath... wimps." she said, smirking.

Unsurprisingly, Sasuke angrily reacted to the taunt by immediately getting up and resuming the training, with Sakura following a few seconds later.

The training continued on like that. Naruto, the stamina freak, managed to keep jumping without a fall all the way up to three boxes. Lin had him jumping four boxes alone while Sasuke and Sakura finished up on three boxes. The final box proved too much for Naruto, who finally had to take a lap carrying four of the heavy boxes.

"Let's get lunch," she said. "Then we'll get our first D-class mission afterwards. Since Naruto performed so well in this training session, he'll get first choice of where to eat lunch. Where are we going?"

"Ichiraku ramen!" Naruto said, the slight exhaustion he'd felt wiped away by the thoughts of fresh ramen.

"All right, then. To the ramen stand, at the run. Up! Up! Get going!" she ordered, dragging Sakura to her feet. Sasuke followed, still glaring at Naruto.

The first team lunch didn't feature a lot of conversation; Lin was not a talkative type, Naruto was too busy eating, Sasuke was too busy glaring, and Sakura was too wiped out. In fact, other than ordering meals, the meal passed in silence until Sakura finished her first bowl and pushed it away. "Another bowl for Haruno-san," Lin ordered, not looking up from her meal.

"I'm not hungry, sensei," Sakura said, lying her head on the table.

"I don't care. You've exercised too much for one bowl of ramen. The only question is... will you eat it yourself, or do I force-feed you in front of your teammates and the employees here?"

Sakura met her teacher's eyes and found no threat there - just a promise. "I'll eat, I'll eat!" she said, taking the new bowl and eating it mechanically.

"Naruto, you've eaten enough," Lin said, turning to the boy in question. A stack of empty bowls was in front of him, and he was finishing off another.

"I'm still hungry," Naruto protested.

"Whatever," she said dismissively. "I want you and Sasuke to go get a D-class mission at the Hokage's tower. I'll pay for the food."

"A mission!" Naruto said, cheering. "What are you waiting for, Sasuke? Let's go!"

"Hnn," Sasuke said noncommittally.

"Meet us in front of the Yamanaka flower shop," she ordered.

The two headed out. As soon as they were beyond earshot, Lin turned to her remaining student. "Follow me," she said, slapping Sakura on the shoulder.

"Umm, ok," Sakura said, putting her now-empty bowl down silently.

Lin lead her through Konoha before leaning against a building across the street from the flower shop. "Speak freely. You must have a lot on your mind."

"Isn't this training too hard?" Sakura whined.

"No," she said, shaking her head. She looked Sakura in the eye. "Hard training and easy missions is much better than easy training and hard missions. Look," she said, nodding towards the shop. "Isn't that girl your rival?"

Sakura looked. Sure enough, Ino was in the shop, looking happy, and not looking like she'd trained half to death. "Yeah. Why isn't she with her team?"

"Well, most teams do that test I told you about. She must have passed, and has nothing else to do for the day. But even if she doesn't, she isn't taking things seriously." She turned to Sakura and pulled the leaf headband off her head. "You should. Put it on the right way," she instructed, giving her the headband back..

Clumsily, Sakura tied her forehead protector around her head.

"You should always take being a ninja seriously," Lin said. "I know you think I'm being very hard on you guys, but you need to look at the other jounin before you say that. I know a jounin who trains even harder than I do, and has been giving his team hard training as well. Come to think of it, I should probably introduce you guys to them. It might do for you to have a friend who isn't a rival for Sasuke." Privately, Lin hoped Neji and Sasuke might recognize how much they acted like jerks if they saw their fellow genius, although she probably wasn't that lucky.

"I guess," Sakura said, still tired. "Oh, there's Sasuke!" she said, "and Naruto too," she added with much less enthusiasm.

"Give me the mission scroll," she said, and Sasuke tossed over the scroll. He and Naruto didn't look happy. Probably spent the time glaring at each other. The Uchiha sure was touchy about being upstaged... well, he'd get over it. She smirked, then opened the mission scroll. "It looks like we're walking dogs today," she said. "Alright, let's go!"

Lin watched her team do its tasks with a serene expression. Her teams never complained about D-class missions - they were a welcome break from the hard training. She wondered how many of her former students had ever realized that was one of the purposes of her harsh training regimen. She certainly was chuckling internally at the way the genin weren't doing the usual rookie rush job on the assignment, knowing that they'd be back to the training grounds and the boxes again after this.

Still, they walked back to the training grounds with a spring in their step. Probably from getting paid for the first time, she thought. "All right, then. Had a nice break?" she said.

"Yes, sensei," the three replied.

"Guess what? We're not jumping over boxes this time," she announced. She watched the reactions of her team. Sure enough, Sakura brightened up visibly, Naruto almost looked disappointed, and Sasuke looked wary.

"Are we going to be carrying them around the clearing?" he asked carefully.

"No. We're just going to be standing on top of them. Make two piles of five boxes each," she ordered. The three genin stacked up the boxes, then looked at her. "Watch closely," she ordered, then placed one foot on the side of the boxes, and then another. She then turned to them. "This is a very basic chakra control exercise. I want each of you to pick one of the sides and stick yourself to the boxes with your chakra." She hopped back down. "Now, get started!"

Sakura was the surprise of the group, learning how to stand on the side almost immediately. Once she was satisfied that Sakura could stand on the side for a few minutes, Lin nodded, gave her a thumbs up, and went on to the next of her students. "Hmm, Sasuke, you're emitting a bit too unevenly - the instability it causes is what's making you lose your grip. Try gripping with chakra at the edges of your foot, instead of all the way across." She watched him adjust his technique. "Yes, like that," she said.

Then she walked over to Naruto, who kept falling off. She smacked her face with her palm. "Naruto, your chakra control is horrible," she said, sighing. "You've got the right idea, but your raw control is nonexistent... just keep trying." She turned around to the stack Sakura and Sasuke were on. "You two, keep practicing stepping on and off of the stack for a few minutes. That'll be all for you tonight. I'll need to get Naruto up to speed on chakra control."

"I guess the box drill was luck, dobe," Sasuke said, smirking.

"50 pushups, Sasuke, and count them off."

Sasuke growled angrily and began counting off pushups.

Naruto looked up at his teacher hopefully. She shook her head. "Just keep trying what you're doing for a bit," she said.

When Sasuke was finished, she dismissed them. "Can I borrow a box?" Sasuke asked casually.

"Bring it back tomorrow," Lin said.

"I'll help you carry a second box, Sasuke," Sakura offered, picking up another box.

"Hnn," Sasuke said. "OK." No way was he letting Naruto beat him in anything.

Once they left Lin turned to her remaining student. "Your chakra control is horrible," she said. Naruto frowned. "Don't frown, I have a way for you to fix it," she said. "You know kage bunshin, right?"

"Yeah!"

"Make three bunshin," she ordered.

Naruto made a seal and three bunshin popped into existence. "I want each of you to stand on one of the sides of the stacks."

"And?" Naruto asked. That couldn't be it, right?

Lin smiled, and performed the same hand seal. Three copies of herself popped into existence. "Well, I want you to do exactly as I say. This way we can pack four times the training in."

"Oh," Naruto said, and redoubled his effort.

oooooooo

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and Viz Media. I don't own any of the characters, concepts, or settings within the story except for Makurayami Lin.

oooooooo

Author's Notes: I haven't abandoned Fate, I just haven't written much. I hope to get chapter 17 out someday.

This fic basically is written to satisfy my frustration at how incompetent the Naruto jounin seem to be. The genin almost might as well have no teacher at all.


	2. Chapter 2 : The First Week

oooooooo

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and Viz Media. I don't own any of the characters, concepts, or settings within the story except for Makurayami Lin.

oooooooo

The next day started much like the first, with their sensei leading them all over the village on a random run. They came back to the clearing and the genin immediately started setting up the boxes for the jump drill again.

"Stop. Put the boxes down," Lin ordered.

"We're not doing the jumping exercises?" Naruto asked.

"Or standing on the side?" Sakura added.

"Nope," she said. "We're doing something different." She picked up seven of the boxes and stacked them up, then lifted the entire stack, impressing the genin. She made two stacks of two boxes about five paces across, and then put a box in between them, then one on either side of the two boxes. The path curved slightly. "Each of you grab a box."

"We're going to have to run back and forth, aren't we?" Sasuke said, starting to get the point of this exercise.

"Something like that," she answered. "You'll jump over the boxes. At the end, put your box down, then return to the front and grab the next box or stack of boxes in the sequence. I expect the spacing of the boxes to get a bit ragged, so watch your step."

The genin looked at her with wide eyes. That sounded downright evil.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Get going!" she yelled. "Go! Go! Go! Sasuke first!"

At her prompting the Uchiha took off, holding the box across his chest. "Now you, Naruto. Go!" Naruto bounded off energetically, leaping over the boxes just as Sasuke dropped his box on the ground and started running back.

Sakura looked at the boxes. "You sent us in that order for a reason," she said, realizing it would be a while before she got a two-box stack.

"Of course. I think things through, Sakura," she said simply. "Now go!" Lin shoved her towards the boxes, and Sakura started hurdling the boxes.

The grueling exercise continued for the better part of an hour, at the end of which even Naruto was panting in exhaustion. Sakura had collapsed totally and Sasuke had sat down on one of the stacks, breathing heavily. "I've always felt the Academy didn't do a good enough job of doing basic conditioning, and every genin team I've taught has shown that," Lin said, sitting down on another box. "You guys are too tired for more box drills, but I've got something we can work on for the moment." She produced four sticks, each a foot and a half long.

"What are those for?" Sakura asked, curiously.

"Chakra control," she said. "We're going to arm wrestle. Sort of," she amended. She handed each of the genin a stick, then she put the stick she kept and placed the end in her palm. It stayed upright, even when she held her hand out palm down. "Learning to control and manipulate chakra in your hands is one of the most important skills a ninja can develop. What we'll be doing is working on keeping the sticks attached to your hands for now. When you've managed to get a bit of control over that, we're going to split into pairs, and you'll be trying to force your opponent's stick down, as if you were arm-wrestling."

After a few minutes, she was glad to see that even Naruto could get his stick to stay on his palm, even if it flailed more or less randomly. The late-night drilling with Naruto on chakra control had made substantial improvements even after just one day. That augured well for the future, she decided. He'd catch up to the others, more or less, in chakra control, just like she was going to work them silly until they could match the kind of insane stamina she'd developed and Naruto already had.

"All right," she said. "We'll pair off now. Sasuke and Sakura, and Naruto and I. Try to force your opponent's stick to the ground." She sat down, facing Naruto across a stack of boxes while Sakura blushed, happy to get time alone with Sasuke, even if it was training. The two genin immediately began the exercise, as both were able to get the stick to move as they wanted, although combining the power and precision to take down the other's stick was a bit beyond their ability.

With Naruto, however, she had her hands full. "Come on, Naruto, you have to let the chakra out smoothly," she said, as she watched his stick wobble out of his control.

"I'm trying," Naruto complained, "but it's so hard to let just a little chakra out like that..." Squinting, the blond grunted with effort as he tried to get his stick to at least bob in the direction of his sensei's stick.

Lin patiently watched him for a few minutes, thinking of ways of dealing with Naruto's unique difficulty. The boy had so much chakra, that precise control of small amounts of chakra was exceedingly difficult, like water being forced out of a hole in a pond, compared to the jug-sized amount of chakra most had. She could, in fact, think of several ways of allowing him to get better control, but couldn't think of any easy method which wouldn't instill bad habits in the boy. In the end... "Naruto, you're just going to have to practice until you can do it. In the long run, though, if you're going to be chuunin, nevermind Hokage, you're going to need good chakra control."

"I know," Naruto said, still focused on the stick. "I won't give up!"

o o o o o o o o

They'd all eaten lunch, onigiri since it was Sakura's turn to choose and she wanted to please Sasuke, and drawn a D-class mission cleaning up Training Area 23: raking leaves, filling in divots and craters from jutsu, and throwing out broken and discarded traps. The area was a mess when they got there, and Lin leaned on a rake as they looked out over the training grounds.

The genin stared. The area had been totally trashed. "You know, walking those stupid mutts suddenly looks a lot better," Sasuke grumbled.

"Oi! I've got a great technique that'll do this fast!" Naruto yelled, and began to form a seal. Lin held out her hand, though.

"No. Don't do that," she said. She stared out over the messy training area without looking at her team. "Look at that. What do you see?"

"A mess," Sasuke said.

"Lots of junk," Naruto added.

"A couple of hours gone," Sakura answered.

"I see a library of useful information. I asked the Hokage to give us this job for a reason. Follow me," she ordered, and headed over to a shallow depression. The grass had been torn away in a rough circle, and the ground had a slightly dished in appearance. "Here we have evidence of a jutsu," she said. "What kind of jutsu? Who used it, and who was it used against? How many people were involved in this fight, and how many were on each side?" She looked at them. "You'd be surprised what you can tell from a battlefield. Let's go to where they entered the training ground."

"This training area is open on all sides, though," Sakura said. "They could have entered from any side."

Lin nodded. "That's right, but almost everyone enters from the same direction, in this case, closest to the village. And the terrain makes people favor a few spots as entrances. Let's go to where our unknown ninja entered," she said.

Soon enough, they came to a patch of ground. To their untrained eyes, it looked much like any other part of the training ground, except that it wasn't as messed up. "They must not have stayed near the border very long," Sasuke said thoughtfully.

"You're using your head, but wrong. They just didn't fight here. Look," their teacher said, pointing to some wildflowers. The stems of the small flowers were snapped in a few places and a few petals were pressed into the ground with some force. "At least one person spent some time here. Are there any other signs of people being here, that you can see? Try not to move around and make more."

The genin immediately began pointing out various things, most of which were, of course, horribly wrong. But Sakura saw a dead leaf which had been half-crushed, Sasuke noticed a tree had some bark scraped off a bit too high for an animal to have done, and Naruto noticed a tiny bit of orange fuzz in a low lying bush.

Sasuke shook his head. "I thought you were the only ninja stupid enough to go running around wearing bright orange, Naruto."

"Hey! Orange is awesome!" Naruto retorted angrily.

"You didn't do bad for total novices," Lin said, "but there are other signs here. Notice how the grass has a slight bias here, with the blades pointing left and right? Someone was walking back and forth here. We don't see any signs of walking back and forth near the other clues you found. What does that suggest?"

"They were seperate people," Sasuke said, answering the obvious.

"It's a genin team!" Sakura said, the answer coming to her. "Three genin and their instructor. He was the one walking back and forth, right?"

"Exactly. Good job, Sakura," Lin said. "A genin team used this training ground. Their jounin told them about the exercise they'd be doing, and then they headed over to where the mess was. We'll go back and see if we can determine what they were doing."

They headed back over to the heavily-wrecked part of the training grounds. "OK, now for the second part of our exercise. What were they doing?" Lin reached into her vest and pulled out a bunch of little orange flags, and handed them out to the genin. "Put these flags everywhere you think someone used any of the ninja arts," she ordered.

Her team scattered immediately. With a critical eye, she watched them flag all the obvious spots off right off the bat, and then began flagging the less obvious spots, like the many points someone had used a thrown weapon, or the pure taijutsu fight which was somewhat isolated from the rest of the activity. She smiled when Naruto and Sasuke started arguing over some of the weapons (and holes left by weapons) found in high trees and such, without any apparent plan. They'd managed to correctly track the weapons back to the shallow crater, but had formed two entirely different opinions as to what that meant.

"I'm telling you, this was a single jutsu!" Naruto yelled. "This guy threw out the weapons from all sides into the trees. Someone was up here. See?" He pointed to a scuffmark in the tree he was crouched in, showing that someone had been up here next to a hole in the tree. The blond genin put one of his kunai in the hole. "It's a perfect fit."

"Maybe you would chuck a hundred weapons in the woods to hit one person, dobe," Sasuke said smugly, "but I doubt a skilled genin would. Unless he's the other guy wearing orange, of course," he added as an afterthought.

"Teme!" Naruto said.

"It's obvious these were aimed shots, and the technique that messed up the grass was something else," Sasuke said.

"I agree with Sasuke," Sakura said, earning a sad look from Naruto. "There was that spot in the forest where we found the ground all stomped on, and bare spots on the tree bark facing it. Someone was throwing at targets, and they didn't miss. So why would they wastefully chuck a bunch of weapons in the woods, if they were that good?" Sasuke nodded.

"If they were so great, how come they don't seem to have hit anybody?" Naruto retorted. "There's no blood or nothing up in the trees!"

"Students, students..." Lin said slowly. "Calm down. I like how much thought you've put into it, but you should realize that it's possible to misread the evidence, especially when you're new at it. Oh, Sasuke? Naruto?"

"Yes, sensei?" they chorused.

"Fifty pushups each, for insulting your teammate," Lin said. The two genin sighed and started doing pushups. "Anyways, I'm giving you a sort of homework assignment."

"I figured I was done with that when I graduated the Academy," Naruto groused.

"Heh," Lin said. "This one should be fun, though. I want you to find out what team used this training ground in two days. When we meet for training, day after tomorrow, tell me who used this training ground. OK?"

Sasuke and Naruto finished their pushups and stood up. "Sounds easy enough," Sasuke said.

"I'll find out who practiced here, believe it," Naruto boasted with a foxlike grin.

"Well, since you're both so confident," Lin said, smiling. "I'll expect you two to deliver. Anyways, now that the fun is over, let's clean this place. Oh, and return my flags. Unharmed!" she added, seeing a swarm of Naruto clones attack the place. She formed a few of her own kage bunshin and helped out.

o o o o o o o o

That evening, Lin had them stand on the sides of the boxes again. When she was satisfied that even Naruto could stand sideways for a long period of time, she had them come down and spar lightly with each other, so she could gauge their skill at taijutsu. Pronouncing Sasuke's skill as passable, she let him leave early while Naruto and Sakura stayed behind for 'remedial taijutsu'.

"See you later, Naruto," Sasuke said, smirking insufferably. "I guess I can go look for that other team." Sakura wished him luck as she watched him walk off, although internally she was complaining that she couldn't go with him.

Naruto raised his fist at Sasuke and was about to scream 'Teme!' before remembering where he was, or more accurately, where his sensei was. He settled for giving Sasuke the finger as the Uchiha walked away.

"Giving your teammate the finger, huh?" Lin said, amused.

"It was a seal, for good luck," Naruto joked.

"Oh yeah? Which seal was that?"

"The Bird seal, of course," he said deadpan.

Lin snorted, while Sakura looked at him with an annoyed expression. "That was lame, Naruto," she complained.

"We'll see how funny he finds my taijutsu practice," she said. "We're going to start from the beginning, and you two will relearn how to punch, because, quite frankly, you both are horrible at taijutsu."

For the next five hours, she had the two throw a truly mind-numbing number of punches, working on them over and over again until she felt they had the form down right, and then for several hundred repetitions after that until she felt they'd punch correctly automatically.

o o o o o o o o

The next day, after their now-expected run around the village, they did a modified form of the box jumping exercise again, this time leaping over the stacks without landing on the top and without turning around. Jumping fowards wasn't a problem, but jumping backwards accurately proved to be a problem for all of the genin. By lunch time, all of them were horribly worn out, not just in the legs, but in the arms, too, from carrying around the stacks on penalty laps.

They ate barbecue, with all three genin grumbling about the now-hated boxes to Lin's amusement, and immediately went to work washing windows in town... which Lin again turned into training, by having them take the next step from merely standing sideways to walking sideways. After a few hours of cleaning windows that way, they'd learned it to the point that they didn't fall off at all.

Afterwards, they did more basic taijutsu drills, with Sasuke visibly irritated at doing such basic exercises, but Lin found plenty to criticize in his technique, too. She worked them hard right up until her clock rang, signaling dinnertime. "All right, day's over. Put everything away and go home," she said. Her boxes were put back, the genin tried to clean up their training area some, or at least disguise exactly what they'd been doing - difficult because of the rectangular sections of crushed grass that was under the boxes - that D-class mission to clean the training area had made a distinct impression on them.

Once they were finished Naruto ran over to the Ichiraku as fast as he could. He barely had any time nowadays; his sensei ran him ragged from dawn until dinner, and usually he just went home and collapsed dead asleep. He wasn't looking forward to staying up another few hours, but he wanted to find out who the other team was that had used the training grounds. The problem was, he figured he was out of luck anyways. The other team probably finished for the day hours ago, so he wouldn't stumble across them. How many other teams trained as much as his did, anyways?

He was already onto his second bowl of ramen when he noticed someone he knew sitting down. "Old man Hokage!" he said, excited.

"Oh, hello, Naruto," he said, pretending to be surprised to see the young genin, when both of them knew he'd come here just to check on the orphan. "I've heard you're doing well with your team," he said conversationally.

"It's great! Makurayami-sensei is a great teacher," Naruto responded enthusiastically.

"Yes, she's one of our better jounin," Sarutobi said. "You haven't been pranking people since you became a ninja, and your team has performed its missions well. Someone has to be good to get those results." The Hokage chuckled. Usually, fresh genin teams were fairly surly about the tasks they performed. Only Gai and Lin had the opposite track record: genin who were happy to do D-class missions, because it was a break from the brutal, unending training.

"Oi! That's why she's so cool," Naruto said. "The other day, when we were cleaning up the training area, she was showing us how hunter-nins pick up signs of ninja..."

Naruto nattered on for a good half an hour about what they'd found out about the other ninja before realizing something. The Hokage knew all the ninja in the village, therefore, he'd know who used the training ground. Right? Right! "Ojisan, could you tell me which team used the training ground before we cleaned it?" Naruto asked.

"No, your sensei told me what she was planning," the Hokage answered. "However, you are making this more complicated than it needs to be. A ninja sees underneath the underneath."

Naruto sat there for a while, gears turning, but no answer forthcoming. "OK, give me a hint," he pleaded.

Sarutobi looked at Naruto. "The training areas are assigned by the village. Teams reserve them for upcoming days."

Naruto's face lit up. "So they asked, and got permission! There's gotta be a form or something, right?"

"You're on the right track," he answered. "That's all the help I'm going to give you. You'd better hurry up, though; the chuunin who handle the paperwork don't stay in the tower all night."

He didn't need to be told twice. Slapping money on the counter, Naruto took off at once. The man behind the counter looked at the rapidly running genin in surprise. "He only ate two bowls of ramen," he said, amazed. "That's the fewest he's ever had here."

The Hokage chuckled, and stood up. "Well, he'll probably be back later tonight. He's just a bit exciteable. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir."

o o o o o o o o

The next morning, they all gathered in the now-familiar training ground. "OK, troops," Lin said. "Before we do anything we've got two things to get settled. First, who figured out what the other team was?"

All three genin raised their hands, causing her to smile. All of them? She'd expected only one - at most - to find out. "All right. We'll start with Sasuke. Who were they, and how did you find out?"

"The team is led by a jounin named Gai," Sasuke said confidently. "I went to each training ground until I found a team using the techniques we detected in the other training grounds. Then I just asked their team leader who he was. He said he was a former teammate of yours." Left unsaid was that Sasuke found him freaky and scary and his mini-me clone even freakier and scarier, and had gotten the hell out of there as fast as possible.

"Hmm, for your information gathering, I assign a rank of C," Lin said thoughtfully. "While successful, your methods were time consuming and inefficient." Sasuke grumbled irritably. "How about you, Sakura?"

"I checked the registration photos for anybody else wearing orange, but came up empty. So I started asking shopkeepers about genin who used lots of thrown weapons, and one of them admitted to being the genin in question. Once I identified Tenten, the rest of the team was easy."

"Good work, B-minus, maybe B work, you looked for the photo first, which is safe and fast, even if it didn't pan out," Lin said. "Asking around draws attention to yourself, however. OK, Naruto, how did you figure it out?"

"I just looked to see who reserved the training field at the Hokage's office," he answered with his trademark fox grin.

"B-class work, efficient, simple, direct. Very good, all of you. Most genin don't figure that out, by the way," she said, praising them.

"Hm, C-class," Sasuke grumped. "What would we have to do for you to rank it A?"

"Well, considering they are fellow ninja who attended the Academy with you... to get an A, you would have had to identify them back in the training area," Lin answered honestly. She stood there for a few seconds, as the genin waited for her to start running.

"Aren't we going running, sensei?" Sakura asked her.

"Hnn, I haven't covered the second thing I needed to discuss. Who threw my boxes in the pond?" she asked. When no one stepped forward, she pinched her nose. "I'm an A-class hunter nin, don't think I don't already know."

With a sigh, Sasuke stepped forward. Sakura looked at him, disappointed. "Sasuke?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I'm just frustrated... we're not learning anything useful yet! Just running and exercising with those damn boxes!" He looked at Lin moodily. "Teach me something, damnit!"

Sakura and Naruto waited nervously. Makurayami-sensei didn't like being challenged by mere genin, and they could feel her anger even if she looked fairly calm. "So, you think you're ready to start learning jutsu, huh?" she asked coolly. "Well, we'll see about that later today. I've got a test you'll have to pass first."

As disappointed as he was that Sasuke's whininess was being rewarded, Naruto was equally as excited for the chance to learn a new technique. "Really? A jutsu?"

"Really. Provided, of course, you pass the test," she said.

"We'll pass it," Sasuke bragged.

"We'll see. First, since you threw the boxes in, you have to get them out."

Grudgingly, Sasuke went over to the pond and dragged the boxes out. They were heavy, slick, and caked in nasty oozy mud from the bottom of the pond. They had to be smelled to be believed, too. One by one he dropped them in the clearing, until he had all ten boxes retrieved.

Lin looked at them thoughtfully. "You know, I was going to do something different, but with these boxes the way they are... we're doing the shuttle drill again. You three form seven stacks however you'd like, and run it in the same order as the first time."

The thought of having to wrestle with the heavy, gloppy boxes while jumping over others did not fill the team with glee. Even Sakura gave Sasuke an angry glare as they set up the boxes. By the time they were finished the exercise, the mud had neatly been transferred from the boxes to them, and _then _Lin led them on their run through town after they were already worn out from doing box drills.

She mercifully let them visit the baths before lunch. After having their fill of tempura, they did their D-class mission, with the genin looking forward to learning their first jutsu.

Lin stood in front of them in the clearing. "Learning jutsu is something fresh rookie genin shouldn't be bothering with during the D-class mission phase," Lin lectured. "Teamwork, conditioning, and mastering the basics are more important. Jutsu are for genin taking more difficult missions. So if you want to learn jutsu, I want to see if you're capable of handling such a mission." She stopped and formed a single kage bunshin. "This bunshin is a harmless civilian you have been assigned to protect. You must escort this bunshin back to the tempura shop. If the clone is destroyed, you fail." A timer was placed on one of the boxes and set for thirty minutes. "You have thirty minutes to prepare a plan to defend your client." With that, Lin disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Immediately they set to arguing. "I'll make a bunch of fake teams with kage bunshin and henge, and we'll sneak by her," Naruto said.

"That isn't going to fool a jounin," Sasuke sneered. "We're going to have to go for speed. I'll defend against our sensei, you scout ahead with clones to warn us and fight any of her clones, and Sakura is our last line of defense."

For the first time in her life, Sakura wanted to side with Naruto, if for no other reason that she was pretty exhausted already and his way seemed easier. Still, she threw in with Sasuke. "He's probably right. She'd be able to sort out which group was which soon enough. You saw how she pointed out things we didn't even notice in the training grounds. She'd just see something we missed and be right on the trail of the right group."

Naruto grumbled about being ganged up on and turned to the bunshin. "Oi, sensei, you got any tips?" he asked.

The clone shook her head. "I'm just a simple civilian. I don't know anything about ninja."

He kicked a clod of mud in frustration. "OK, Sasuke-teme, we'll do it your way. Let's hear the rest of your plan."

Sasuke spent the next while drawing in the dirt and giving orders. After making sure everyone knew their part, he looked at the timer. "Let's go now," he said.

"But there's still a quarter of an hour left," Sakura said, confused.

"She said we have thirty minutes. She didn't say we had to use it all," Sasuke answered.

"Maybe she won't expect it," Naruto said. "Jutsu! Jutsu!"

They never made it out of the clearing.

o o o o o o o o

"And that, my friends, is why I train you guys to be fast and strong first, and teach you techniques later," Lin said, after all three genin recovered only to find themselves tied to trees. "If this were a real mission, you'd be facing a short and miserable existence being interrogated before someone killed you," she pointed out.

Sasuke bristled at that. "If we had good techniques-"

"-it wouldn't make a bit of difference," Lin said. "None of you got off a single jutsu. It doesn't matter whether your jutsu would destroy the whole village if you can't get it off." The three genin slumped in defeat. "Now, there's no reason to look that sad, kids. You've improved significantly in just the past few days. Imagine what a whole month of that will do." She chopped through the ropes tying her students to the trees. "Get up. Now that I've gotten rid of your illusions about techniques, remember that I'm one of the fastest shinobi in the Leaf, a jounin, and ridiculously experienced in killing. Of course I kicked around three rookie genin less than a week out of the academy." They were still moping. 'Kids,' she thought, and snorted.

Unsurprisingly, Naruto was the first to snap out of it. "I'm not going to stay bad! You watch! When I'm Hokage I'm gonna kick your butt!"

"I don't expect you to stay bad, especially if you do what I say, Naruto," Lin answered with a smile. "There are a few jounin in this village who were my students, after all. If you asked them, they'd tell you what happened the first time they took this test, too."

Sasuke grunted and stood up. "What training are we going to do, then?"

"Basic taijutsu, just like before," Lin said.

o o o o o o o o

They finished their exercises and trained the next day without complaint. Lin knew they wouldn't; losing so horribly in her escort mission test tended to banish youthful defiance from genin for a while. Their run this time had legs done entirely along walls this time, and her box drill for the day was particularly draining. They ate ramen again, which was unsurprising given who got to choose, but were surprised when Lin led them to an empty Academy classroom instead of sending someone to the Hokage tower for a mission.

"On weekends I don't give my genin missions," Lin explained, handing out scrolls and pens. "Instead, I teach them theory and tactics for when we go on missions outside of Konoha. It's my opinion that genin are horribly unprepared for anything that takes them out of the village." She noticed she had Sasuke's rapt attention, now. Probably because he thought it was the first useful thing she'd taught him for chasing his brother, other than analyzing a battlefield. "Who can name the five major ninja villages?"

Sakura's hand shot in the air. Lin nodded to her. "Konohagakure, Kirigakure, Kumogakure, Sunagakure, and Iwagakure,"

"Good," Lin said. She continued on in that vein, talking about the different countries, what grew in them, natural hazards, what they made and what they needed, all sorts of things. At various points she stopped and told them of specific changes or additions they'd want to make to their gear working in different places. Her genin scribbled furiously, trying to keep up. The pace was brutal - she didn't slow down, or have to deal with troublemakers in the class disrupting things, as happened in the Academy. When she finally finished, they looked up to see it was already night. "It's dinner. Time flies when you're working hard, doesn't it?"

The genin looked at her blankly.

She sighed. "Perhaps I worked you guys a bit too hard. We're not meeting tomorrow, you have the day off. I am, however, asking you to write a list of items you'd bring on a field mission and have the list ready for when we meet here next. OK?"

"Yes, sensei!" they chorused. An entire day off without heavy boxes and tireless jounin instructors! They all made immediate plans to sleep in and do absolutely nothing to give their poor abused bodies a rest.

If only they knew it was part of her master plan. One day off to recover meant she could work them twice as hard the rest of the week. She grinned. "Class dismissed!"

o o o o o o o o

Author's Note: Got two chapters out in a hurry. Enjoy, people!


	3. Chapter 3 : Making Waves

oooooooo

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and Viz Media. I don't own any of the characters, concepts, or settings within the story except for Makurayami Lin.

oooooooo

The stress of being a high level ninja will get to anybody. That was what accounted for the remarkable range of eccentric behavior by Konoha's jounin. Chronic tardiness, perversion, an unnatural affection for green spandex, and compulsive gambling were some of the flashier examples.

On the other hand, you had boring people like Sarutobi Asuma, who was merely lazy and smoked a lot. Makurayami Lin was one of the latter group; she just got hammered a bit from time to time.

She leaned forward, her stained maroon shirt brushing aside some of the crumbs on the table, and laughed at her drinking buddy. "-so do you know what he does next?"

"No," Kurenai said. She was somewhat less plastered than her old friend and rival. "What did Sasuke do?"

"He decided to show us his new jutsu," she continued. "A flaming sword jutsu. When he was using a wooden training sword." Kurenai laughed. "Dumbass kid."

"I've got a good one, too, some trouble Kiba got into," Kurenai said, still chuckling, as she poured her friend another drink. "He was showing off how he'd learned the Gatsuuga, when he tried using it on Shino. The only problem was, the Shino he attacked was just a Mushi Bunshin, and when the bugs melted away, he ended up headbutting one of the stone targets."

"Oh, this was training area fifteen?" Lin asked. "You were using seventeen before..."

"Well, that's where your team was spying on us," Kurenai said.

"It was funny seeing Naruto follow Hinata for once. Poor girl, he doesn't even notice."

"You should point it out to him," Kurenai said. "His reaction might be funny."

"Nah, I don't need distractions on my team. Especially now," she said, thinking. She looked into her dish and then held it out for more.

"Geez, thirsty tonight?" Kurenai said. "What do you mean now, anyways? Planning on taking them out of the village?"

"I think so. They seem ready for a C-class mission. Well... I worry about Sakura. She's a bit stressed lately."

"Perhaps getting out of town will help her relax."

"Perhaps."

"I'm surprised you took another genin team already," Kurenai said, as Lin poured her friend a drink.

"No one should have their chance to be a ninja thrown away by Kakashi," she growled.

"Oh, it was your dislike of Kakashi?" Kurenai wobbled slightly and had a thoughtful look on her face. "I thought you still felt-"

The sound of Lin's sake dish cracking caused her to shut up. Her friend relaxed herself quickly and looked at the broken dish blankly.

"I'm sorry for bringing that up," Kurenai said, eyeing her friend carefully. Alcohol and an angry Lin could be bad news for the bar.

"You don't need to apologize. I shouldn't act like that at my age," Lin said. "We're not children anymore."

"Well, well, well!" A completely drunk Anko poured herself into another seat uninvited. She leaned over and stared at Lin in fascination for a moment. "If it isn't the robot and her therapist!"

"Do me a favor and die, you little bitch," Lin said, not bothering to look at the younger jounin.

"You'll have to kill me yourself, you old lady," Anko shot back happily.

"I just found the perfect C-class mission for my team," Lin stage-whispered to Kurenai, and then they both chuckled.

Kurenai opened her mouth, intending to put an end to her friends' bickering, but Anko beat her to the punch. "You must want to see shome genin die," she slurred, as she reached for the sake.

Kurenai immediately shut up and got out of the line of fire.

Lin intercepted her hand and yanked her over, glaring at her with bloodshot eyes. "That isn't yours, first, and second, if you want to see some genin die, just watch my team's opponents in the exam," she snarled.

Anko frowned at her for a second and then threw up.

Lin shrieked and threw her on the floor.

"Haha," Anko laughed, pointing at Lin's vomit-covered shirt.

"Anko, you're disgusting," she said, once she gathered her composure. She got up to her feet shakily and slapped some money down on the table. Kurenai did likewise and they staggered towards the door together. At the last moment she paused and held her friend back. "A lesson for a new team leader," she said seriously.

"Always henge before leaving the bar, or your students will inevitably see you drunk," Kurenai said, hengeing herself. "You told me that back when we were Academy teachers."

Lin paused. "Oh, yeah." She henged as well. "I forgot." They had one more laugh together before heading out into the night.

oooooooo

It was in the long still hours before dawn that Naruto woke and looked over the tall gray walls of Konoha, the walls which had held even the Kyuubi at bay for a time, and he felt excitement, because in his heart he knew that he would soon be on their far side. He showered and washed with unscented soap, so that he left no scent to follow. He ate a good breakfast, because he planned to start fast and not stop until nightfall. His boots had soft, padlike soles, so he broke few branches and crushed few leaves to mark his passage. Every step he took across his apartment was sure and silent, from endless hours of training. And then he ruined all of that by wearing an electric orange jacket, because he was Naruto and was still a loud, orange-obsessed ball of energy despite the best efforts of Konoha's most tireless instructor.

He grabbed his wooden practice sword from its spot next to the door, put it on his back, and gave himself a thumbs up in the dirty reflection of his cracked front window. "Future Hokage Uzumaki Naruto leaves for another successful mission!" he loudly announced, and then left, loudly slamming the door behind him.

Almost immediately after, he opened it again, knocked some of the instant ramen wrappers littering his table onto the floor, and positioned a few of them near his door. It was a neat trick he'd picked up from his sensei, and there was sure as hell someone who'd snuck into his apartment from time to time, which pissed him off. He'd yet to actually catch the bastard, though, although he had set plenty of traps and stuff. Originally he thought it was his sensei doing it as a sort of practice, but she'd denied that outright.

Closing the door much more quietly and carefully this time, he set out to meet his teammates. They'd been genin for five weeks now and had racked up no less than twenty-nine D-class missions to their name, more than either of the other two rookie genin teams.

The orange meteor flew down the streets, headed for its usual morning landing zone. He slowed down and frowned, though, when he saw that his two teammates were already there.

"Hnn," Sasuke said. "What, you decided to sleep in today?" The Uchiha had propped up one of those concrete-filled boxes they'd learned to fear and respect, and sat on the upright box like he was Kage of the training grounds.

"It's a good thing you made it here before Makurayami-sensei," Sakura said, sitting more normally on top of two boxes stacked flat. She leaned forward and propped herself up with her own practice sword. "On the other hand, it would be funny watching you run around town carrying a garbage can full of sand again."

"Hey!" Naruto protested. "There was a reason I was late, my alarm clock was busted!"

"I see you're energetic today," their sensei said, walking into the training area just as dawn broke. The trio of genin had decided that she liked to hide just outside the training grounds and walked in just before dawn. Searching hadn't turned up their sensei's hiding spot, but she was damned hard to find when she didn't want to be found, something they'd had hard experience with when they did training missions. "That's good. We might need that energy today."

"Oh! Are we doing some new training?" Naruto asked eagerly. His teammates just looked at her expectantly. Lin's methods were as effective as they were exhausting, but the sooner they got them done, the longer they could spend dawdling at lunch and on their inevitable D-class mission.

Instead of answering Naruto, their jounin instructor walked around the clearing and looked at the genin and the concrete-filled boxes they were using as seats. After a half minute of silence, and just before Naruto was about to open his mouth, she clapped her hands. "Listen up. Team meeting time," she said. "We've been together five weeks now, and we've been training almost every single day. When we started out, you were academy students. Pathetic, barely able to do the simplest exercises. And now, just think about how well you did last time." She slapped Sakura on the back. "I'm most proud of you, Sakura. You've come a long way."

Sakura nodded, a bit stiffly. Actually, in the opinion of her teammates, she was a bit frazzled and stressed lately, but she'd been working the hardest to catch up, and had the least stamina to try and do it.

"You three have demonstrated in lots of ways that you've taken my lessons to heart over the past five weeks. At any rate, I don't think of you three as being green rookies any more. I'm giving you the next three hours off, then we'll meet for a quick lunch and I'll bring the mission with me." She paused and crossed her arms. "It's time we took a C-class mission."

They cheered. "Yes! A cool mission!" Naruto exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air.

"Finally," Sasuke said, relieved. Finally, a chance to see if he was closing in on - him.

Sakura trembled as Inner Sakura raised her fist triumphantly. A real mission. She'd finally be able to impress Sasuke. "Sasuke! Let's celebrate our first real mission!"

He brushed her off. "We've had plenty of 'real' missions," he said, even though he more or less agreed with her dismissal of the D-class missions. Frankly, if it weren't for the way their sensei turned most of them into additional training, he'd have dismissed them as a total waste of time. "I'm just going to get ready for this mission. You should, too." Sasuke walked away casually, turning his back on his teammates. "I'll see you at lunch."

"Sakura! I'll go with you!"

Sakura just gave Naruto a cold glare. "I don't want to celebrate anything with _you_," she growled.

"But we're teammates," Naruto whined.

"Yeah, so..." Sakura hung her head. "Sasuke's right. We should get ready."

"It's three hours!" Naruto protested. "I can be ready in three minutes."

"Well, fine, Mr. Future Hokage," Sakura said, pointing at him angrily. "You'd better not screw this mission up. I don't want you holding Sasuke and I back!" Her voice had risen to a screech before she turned and stomped off.

"Geez, Sakura is scary lately," Naruto complained. She'd been getting more short tempered as time went on. "Maybe a trip outside the city will help her calm down," he said, hoping that it was true.

It would suck for the future Hokage to be strangled to death as a genin, after all.

oooooooo

If there was one thing Lin hated about Konoha's market district, it was the throngs of civilians who seemed able to trip over their own feet. It almost made her second guess her decision not to pick up her presents yesterday and stash them at her clan's house.

She rudely shouldered a civilian out of her way and lifted up the curtain covering the doorway of her target. Once inside, the curtain cut out the morning light and left the shop lit only by the dim angry glow of the forge.

"Where are they?" she asked the smith. He gestured absently into the corner, and she picked up three equally nondescript blades. Unlike her sword, they were a bit shorter and had a much sharper edge, being made to the standard ANBU-issue pattern.

She selected one and pushed the guard out with her thumb, revealing a fairly plain blade. The name of the smith was proudly engraved: _Tenten_. Other than that there was nothing decorative about the swords at all. The girl knew her tastes well.

Lin turned to the smith. "Your apprentice did a fine job on these," she said, smiling. She took out coins and put them on the workbench.

He shrugged. "You requested her to work on them," he pointed out.

"I trust my friend's student," she said, still paying more attention to the swords. Two swords were tucked under her arm; she pulled the third completely out of its scabbard and held it out, judging its balance. "Very good," she said, and returned it to its sheath.

"Could you do me a favor?" the smith asked.

"It depends," she responded. "Who do you need killed?"

He laughed a bit nervously. "Nothing like that. Your sister ordered some spears and hasn't picked them up..."

"I'm not paying for them," Lin replied irritably.

"Oh, I make her pay in advance, nowadays," he said. "I just wanted to know if you could bring them out to her."

She thought it over for a second. "Not possible. Tell you what, I'll ask the Hokage to assign it to a genin team. I'll just charge Akiko the next time I see her."

"Whatever works," he said, shrugging.

She left and headed for Ichiraku's, the inevitable setting for lunches whenever it was Naruto's turn to choose. Wouldn't her genin be happy to get rid of those wooden practice swords?

oooooooo

Naruto was kicking rocks along the street as he walked, making them skip and bounce over the uneven surface. He was bored out of his mind. Almost three whole hours had passed, he thought. Only a few minutes had been spent picking up the basic gear for going outside of Konoha, just as he'd told Sakura. He had loaded with sealed food (mostly ramen, of course) and had packed plenty of extra weapons, tools, and camping gear. If only he'd figured out how to generalize the sealing technique the way his teammates had, he'd have even more weapons, but it wasn't like the weight was that much extra. He barely noticed his backpack as it was.

After he'd gotten ready to go he'd ended up wandering around the village aimlessly. It had been enough to make him thank the kami that Konohamaru wanted to 'play ninja' again.

He slumped into a seat at Ichiraku, noting that his teammates had already arrived. Sakura was talking Sasuke's ears off, and the sulky member of Team 7 was simply sitting there indifferently. Sakura could have been on Saturn for all he apparently cared. Their backpacks laid on the floor next to them, each of them identical to his own. Lin had forced them to buy the standard issue stuff despite having earned significantly more than the other rookie genin, saying they'd want the money when it came time for the chuunin exams.

"I wonder what our mission is," Naruto said. "Hey, old man, make us five bowls of miso ramen, one of whatever Sasuke and Sakura want, and get a beef ramen for our sensei!"

"It's your fault we don't already know what the mission is," Sasuke sniped.

"It was an accident!" Naruto said, exasperated.

"WE didn't have an accident," Sakura retorted. "Only you did."

"To be fair, accidents happen," Lin said, walking up. She waved a scroll at them, and was accompanied by a tired looking old man. "I've got our mission right here." With her left hand, she tossed the scroll to he three genin; as they reached for it, she snagged one of Naruto's miso ramen and handed it to their client.

Sasuke won the struggle for the mission scroll, shoving Naruto's face back with one hand while quickly reading the scroll. "We have to protect this guy from bandits, huh?"

The second Sasuke's attention drifted from the scroll, Naruto grabbed it. "Wave country! Yeah!" he said. You usually didn't get a mission out of the country on the first shot.

"Naruto! Don't just grab things like that!" Sakura scolded, and grabbed the scroll right back.

"Are these three really reliable?" Tazuna said in between spoonfuls of ramen. "They don't seem to be, especially the short one."

"Don't worry about that, sir," Lin said. She glared at the genin. "You three! Knock it off!" The three twelve year olds straightened up immediately and practically snapped to attention in their seats.

"We're sorry, sensei," they chorused, realizing how immature they'd just looked to their first C-rank client.

"Enough of that," she said. "Since we're heading out of the village, I got you three presents." Their sensei unslung a long package wrapped in burlap and untied the knot holding it closed. Three brand new swords were revealed as the rough cloth fell away.

They inspected their new swords with smiles and curiosity, taking out the swords and holding them up to the light, letting the sun glint off the shiny new edges. For once Naruto had completely forgotten the fresh hot ramen cooling in its bowls. This was only the third real present he'd ever gotten, after the goggles and his forehead protector. Quickly he stuffed the scabbard through his belt and slid the sword home, then bowed to his teacher. "Thank you, sensei," he said, meaning it.

His teammates replaced their wooden swords with steel in the same spot - Sasuke at his belt, and Sakura's sword on her back. They bowed briefly to Lin. "So, when do we leave for Wave?" Sasuke asked.

"As soon as we're done here," Lin said. "The sooner we get to our destination, the better. It's always worse to be attacked in transit than at a defensible location." They nodded. Their teachers at the Academy had said that, too, although with some slow civilian along, they didn't see how much more they could do.

oooooooo

It took a lot of effort, but Naruto had firmly resisted the urge to chatter as they walked towards their goal.

Well, for a while, anyways.

"Hey, mister," he said suddenly, breaking the silence. "Why doesn't Wave country have a ninja village?"

Tazuna looked at him and frowned. "Supporting a village is expensive, and we don't have the money to do it, not with Gatou keeping a stranglehold on our economy."

"So these bandits we're supposed to fight, they're probably going to be hired by Gatou?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah, most likely," Tazuna said. "He's tried to interfere before."

"Hmm..." Lin looked off into the distance as the group skirted a particularly large puddle in their path. "He's not willing to hire foreign ninja himself, however, right?" she asked.

"No, of course not!" he said, sweating a bit. "He's too cheap."

"So we won't be facing any other ninja," Sasuke said, frowning. He caught Sakura's eye and watched her fidget. Then he sighed and glanced at Naruto, catching a tiny nod, almost lost in Naruto's over-enthusiastic mannerisms. Good. They'd noticed it as well.

Lin ran her hand through her hair idly. _So she wants us to act casual, but why? _Sasuke wondered.

The genin, fully on alert, felt the tiny, almost unnoticeable spill of chakra being released from behind them. Instincts from long training kicked in as Lin seemed to vanish and Naruto instantly formed two shadow clones that shoved Tazuna out of the line of fire.

Seeing that the biggest threat and their target were both out of the way, the two enemy nins switched gears and attacked Sasuke, extending a long bladed chain which looped past the Uchiha and then quickly drew taut, slicing the genin into chunks

"SASUKE!" Sakura screamed shrilly, drawing her blade and stepping into her enemy with smoothness born of training and speed born of sheer panic and anger. The missing nin stared at her in horror, not having expected such a young genin to react so swiftly, and clutched with an already weakening hand at the sword run under his ribcage.

"You killed him!" his partner said, enraged, before leaping out of the way of a fireball, as Sasuke darted out from behind a tree, his own sword stabbing downward in one motion to pin the chain to the ground. Then their instructor reappeared, suddenly, with a thunderous kick to the man's back. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, instantly paralyzed.

"Sasuke! You're still alive!" Sakura said, with great relief. Then she remembered where her sword had gone.

"Naruto! Send the clones out to scout around!" Lin snapped, as her sword rasped home. He nodded and sent them off, and helped Tazuna to his feet.

Sasuke walked over and looked enviously at the dead chuunin Sakura had run though. "So you're the first on the team to make a kill," he said thoughtfully. Maybe she wasn't such a drag on the team after all. Although she seemed a bit shook up about it... it was only a little blood.

"I killed him," she said, horrified.

"Yeah, good job," Sasuke said, and patted her on the shoulder before turning to Naruto. "Not like you, you didn't do anything!"

"I was guarding the client! That's everything!" Naruto replied angrily, and gave Sasuke the finger.

Noticing Sakura's distress, Lin walked over to her, put her hand over hers, and pulled the sword free. Then she wiped it off with a piece of cloth and returned it to its scabbard. "We'll talk about this when we make camp," she said gently. "But for now, you need to follow along with the team."

Numbly, the girl nodded and followed her sensei.

"Don't worry about this fool," Lin said, indicating the injured ninja. "A patrol will pick him up. Let's keep moving like we've got a mission, people."

oooooooo

The mood in camp was significantly more somber that night. Tazuna sat, his face revealing his dread of the upcoming discussion of their under-ranked mission that Lin had promised. Naruto seemed irritated at having been left out of the action, and Sasuke... well, he was usually sulking and mooding, so there was nothing unusual from that quarter.

Sakura, though, was visibly shaken. Her teammates seemed oblivious to her problem; Naruto had said she'd looked cool, and Sasuke kept looking at her with contempt, as if she couldn't handle a little thing like killing a man.

She wanted to scream that that wasn't the problem; at least, not the whole problem. Sure, the memory of her sword sliding into the man's chest and deflecting off his ribs would give her nightmares for a week, because she could all too vividly imagine the same happening to her. But they'd almost died out there! Enemy ninja were out there, and they were trying to kill them...

The memory of Sasuke being ripped to shreds by the bladed chain kept looping in her mind. Blood, everywhere blood, raining down on her. Just a bit slow, just a bit weak, and only Sasuke's quickness had saved him.

"Sakura," her sensei said, breaking the loop. She looked up to see the jounin looking intently at her. After a moment she glanced away to her teammates. "Naruto, Sasuke, you guard the camp. Sakura, come with me. I'd like to talk to you for a minute."

The pink haired girl looked up blankly and slowly got to her feet, trailing behind her instructor as they headed for the edge of the fire's light. Lin dropped into a crouch, and Sakura plopped gracelessly against the base of a tree, drawing her legs towards her loosely.

"We don't really need to talk, sensei," she mumbled. "I'll be fine."

Lin rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you'll be fine. But we need to talk, because, if you haven't noticed, we're on a mission slightly more difficult than C-rank, now. So we don't have the time for you to mope about how terrible it is to kill someone."

"Yeah, I'm always the weak one, always holding everyone else back..." Sakura said.

There was a resounding crack as her sensei slapped her. "Don't pull this feeling sorry for yourself bullshit, Sakura. You just killed a chuunin, idiot, how does that make you weak."

"I didn't mean to kill him!" Sakura yelled angrily, getting another slap.

"Do you want to announce to the whole world where we are? Keep your voice down!" Lin told her. "Listen, that's a lie, a big fat lie, and you know it, I know it, and Sasuke knows it. He meant to kill Sasuke, you thought he'd killed Sasuke, he meant to kill you, and you knew you had to kill him first."

Sakura's head bobbed lower, hiding her eyes. "I thought Sasuke was dead. I thought-" She looked up at Lin, and then started crying.

'Teenage girls. Spare me,' Lin thought. She gathered up her student in a hug. Out loud, she said, "You were worried for your teammate and yourself. That's all right, Sakura, that's good. Listen, there is nothing wrong with killing someone when it's warranted. OK? He would have killed us all, if he could."

"Have you lost any teammates?" Sakura said, still shaking slightly.

Lin stiffened up. "Yes."

"How did you get over it?" Sakura asked.

'With time and alcohol,' she thought. But that wasn't an appropriate answer for someone Sakura's age. "It's hard, very hard, to lose friends and comrades. But missions are dangerous... after a while, you grow to accept it." She tousled Sakura's hair. "So just cool down. Sasuke's not going to die so easily, and neither is Naruto. OK?"

"But that Mist-nin died, and he was a chuunin-"

"He made a stupid mistake. He underestimated you, and it was fatal," Lin said. She looked at the pink-haired genin and stood up, staring her in the eye. "Don't make the same mistake. Even a civilian can kill you, or C-ranks wouldn't be C-ranks." She slapped her student on the arm. "But enough about your first kill. Congratulations, and let's get dinner."

"Thanks," Sakura said, and walked behind her, still a bit shaky but with more energy.

The two kunoichi sat down around the fire, Lin across from Tazuna and Sakura as close to Sasuke as she dared get. Their teacher stared at the bridge builder with a dead expression throughout the meal, as they ate their freshly unsealed meals.

Tazuna got more and more fidgety as the meal went on, as Lin's creepy robot-like stare was more unnerving than anger after a good half hour of not changing. Finally, he broke. "Look, I'm sorry I lied about the mission. Gato'us putting such a squeeze on our economy... everyone is broke... he killed my son-in-law..."

The bridge builder babbled on for a while more, then stopped. She still hadn't changed her expression. "I'm sorry," he repeated, and hung his head.

"You could have gotten my soldiers killed," Lin said, her voice perfectly neutral. "This mission is far above what a genin should take on. It is at least a B-ranked mission now."

"I'll understand if you abandon the mission," Tazuna said. "I'll certainly die... and my wife and grandson would hate the Leaf forever-"

"We're not abandoning this mission," Naruto said, slamming a fist on the section of downed tree he was using as a seat. "We should kick this Gatou guy's ass!" he continued, facing his sensei.

"Why?" she asked, her expression lightening a bit at Naruto's gung-ho attitude.

"We took this mission and promised to see it through, that's why," Naruto said, his eyes blazing with determination. "And I won't take my words back!"

"I agree," Sasuke said, deciding to add his opinion. "I don't like the idea of hidden Mist-nins getting based right next to Fire country, even if they did abandon their village. That's just asking for trouble."

"I suppose you're right," Lin decided with finality. She turned to Tazuna. "You will, however, be making up the difference to Konoha with tolls on your bridge. Do you agree that this is reasonable?" Her expression - formerly neutral, if a bit creepy - grew very harsh at the end.

Tazuna flinched back. "More than reasonable. It's the least Wave could do to make up for our deception."

Lin smiled. "I'm glad that's settled, then. Naruto, you have first watch, then Sasuke. I'll handle the dead shift, and Sakura will handle early morning." A few hand signs, and water doused the fire, so that no light or glow betrayed their location, just the lingering smell of smoke. "Everyone get some sleep."

oooooooo

The next morning, they reached the sea, and crossed it in the lee of the fog-shrouded dreamlike bulk of the unfinished bridge.

"That's one hell of a lot of smashed rocks and dead trees," Naruto had said, upon first seeing it.

"Bigger than I expected," Sasuke added.

"And you thought I was just some bum," Tazuna said smugly. "I'm a skilled engineer."

They'd passed the rest of the trip in silence, until the boat came to rest on the muddy shore of Wave country. "Here we are," Lin said. "We're on the enemy's home ground, now. We may be under attack at any time. Be alert."

Tenseness overtook the team, as they walked through the forest quietly, with only Tazuna's feet giving away their position, as his sandals stuck slightly to the gloppy, muddy forest floor. The ninja had spread their chakra under their feet, moving silently and with less telltale crushed vegetation. The thick fog blanketed the forest and seemed to deaden the sound slightly; they could be walking into an ambush and had less chance of discovering it.

Suddenly Naruto turned left and snap-threw a kunai into the underbrush. Three swords hissed out of their sheaths even before his hand finished its motion, and the genin stood alert.

A kage bunshin was dispatched into the woods to investigate. It held up a dead white rabbit, the victim of Naruto's throw.

"White rabbit-" Sasuke started.

"-not winter-" Naruto muttered, catching the train of thought.

"-Kawarimi!" Sakura finished.

"DOWN!" Lin commanded, as she ducked. Something huge whirred over their heads, spinning wildly as it flew through the air. It passed over them and chopped into the side of a tree, just as a man landed on its handle.

The genin stepped forward, ready to fight. Their instructor held up a hand. "This one... let me handle him. He's one of the Hidden Mist's Seven Swordsmen - Momochi Zabuza."

Their enemy looked down at them critically. "So... Konoha's infamous Bloody Bitch," he said thoughtfully. "You're a lot like myself..."

A feral grin spread over the face of Makurayami Lin. "Is that so, Momochi? Then come down and prove it, because I'm going to rip you apart!"

oooooooo

Author's Notes:

Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. No, Fate's not dead, either. Just stalled.


End file.
